CVE-2020-29567

MEDIUM

Xen < 4.14.0 - Denial of Service via IRQ Vector De-allocation

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

Description

An issue was discovered in Xen 4.14.x. When moving IRQs between CPUs to distribute the load of IRQ handling, IRQ vectors are dynamically allocated and de-allocated on the relevant CPUs. De-allocation has to happen when certain constraints are met. If these conditions are not met when first checked, the checking CPU may send an interrupt to itself, in the expectation that this IRQ will be delivered only after the condition preventing the cleanup has cleared. For two specific IRQ vectors, this expectation was violated, resulting in a continuous stream of self-interrupts, which renders the CPU effectively unusable. A domain with a passed through PCI device can cause lockup of a physical CPU, resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS) to the entire host. Only x86 systems are vulnerable. Arm systems are not vulnerable. Only guests with physical PCI devices passed through to them can exploit the vulnerability.

References (3)

Core 3
Core References
Patch, Vendor Advisory x_refsource_misc
https://xenbits.xenproject.org/xsa/advisory-356.html
Third Party Advisory vendor-advisory x_refsource_gentoo
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202107-30

Scores

CVSS v3 6.2
EPSS 0.0006
EPSS Percentile 17.2%
Attack Vector LOCAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Details

CWE
CWE-770
Status published
Products (2)
fedoraproject/fedora 33
xen/xen < 4.14.0
Published Dec 15, 2020
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026